Matthias

Age: 43

City: Berlin

So, I read something on your website about this place, but I also want to hear personal stories, the personal side of how you came to be doing this, and also maybe introduction of how this place works. So, first, self-introduction.

I’m Matthias, and I’m one of the three directors of ZK/U, and I’m one of four members of the artist collective KUNSTrePUBLIK. There are overlaps. So the KUNSTrePUBLIK is the same as the ZK/U director board, except for one person who’s living in Hamburg. And we’ve been running ZK/U for 3 years now, it was opened in August 2012. And before that, we’ve been working together for 8 years, so it has been quite a long time that we’ve worked together, almost more than 10 years.

We started off as an artist collective doing projects in public spaces. And through this journey of doing projects all over the world, and mostly also in Berlin of course, we realized we needed a stable base because in Berlin you have, as I guess all big cities, the problem of growing rents in the city ring. As artists we don’t have incredibly high income, so we had to find a solution how we can stay in the city. So, we started to look for a building where we can sustainably stay and work, for ourselves. This was like 6 years ago. And then, we came across this building, and realized this cannot just be for ourselves, it’s too big, we have to create something that is also for other people. And then we developed this concept of running a residency, for various reasons.

I will explain how ZK/U runs. ZK/U is basically divided in two parts. One is the public part; the other one is the private part. The private part is we have 14 residency spaces where artist from all around the world can work and live. They don’t only work here, they also live here. And they stay between 2 months and 8 months. Our focus is on artists that are working in the urban arena that have questions towards how the city could look, how it’s influenced by the city’s past, how can influences from all over the world change a city. Yeah, so we are trying to gather together artists that are working in this field. Not only artists, but also people working scientifically in the field of research, like people coming from sociology. Architects, designers... and also people who are socially engaged. ‘Cause our idea and focus is, as I mentioned, urban discourse.

But also, we are trying to bring together local community activities with activities from people coming from all over the world. Because this is something usually very difficult to bring together, I find. You know, very often you have residencies where artists do their stuff, and then they have an open house exhibit in galleries and so on. But there is no interaction between the actual environment of the residency and the residents. So this is something we want to focus on, and therefore, we have this second part of the building, the public space that we are sitting in now. This area plus the big hall, which is an exhibition hall, and then downstairs there is a cellar. These public spaces are for all kind of events.

We have open houses, we have an experimental flea market every two weeks, and we have every Friday experimental cinema, curated cinema with food, which corresponds to the films that are shown. And then, we have all kinds of workshops, seminars, and exhibitions of course. Different things that have the potential to attract people not only from the art scene or from the urban sciences, but also people that are just locals. And this is something we try very hard to realize, and it's not always easy. Because it creates some tension between sometimes the interest of the artists, or the interest of the broader public.

The artists sometimes would rather just do their work and exhibit in galleries, and just want to stay in the artist bubble. The community outdoors, they sometimes just want very simple formats that are not too experimental. So we are trying to find something that is in between the experimental side coming from the artists and the kind of attractive popular stuff, so people can actually come in and feel they are not totally in the wrong place. So this is kind of a tricky thing, but we think it’s worth trying to build this bridge.

How did this intention grow and where did it came from? Does this have to do with the previous artist collective work you were doing?

Ah yes. Yes, exactly. We as an artist collective have always been interested in developing works which create some kind of social interaction. We work in public spaces mostly. We never really exhibit in galleries or museums and stuff. We do works that are very site specific, they interact with local communities.

There is always a process that leads to the work, it’s never like we come with an idea, and then we just build it, and that’s it. It’s always like, let’s go to the place, we do research, we see what the parameters are, and then we develop works from these parameters. And two months later we do something that has something to do with the community where everyone works. So, that’s the place where it’s coming from. The idea that art is more than just form and message, but also process and social interaction.

It kind of connects to land art, or public art. But when you say you don’t exhibit in galleries, is it because this is not the type of work that will sell at galleries, so they don’t want to exhibit you? Or is it your statement of saying I actually don’t to exhibit in galleries?

It’s both. You know, it’s really both. It’s like on the one side, we don’t create work that is sellable. I mean we create videos and photography stuff. But it’s not attractive enough, on the other side, for the art market. I mean, maybe in the long run. But actually we are also not like “No, we are not selling anything to anyone.” This is not like I don’t care enough about the art market that I have such a strong negative or positive feeling about it. It’s just not attractive for both sides. That’s really it.

To me this is really interesting, because normally artists, when they want to make a career, they have to submit themselves into this art system in order to validate it and be recognized in this world.

Yeah, that’s very tough work.

But it seems like you are now here with this space, and what you are doing  here, creating your own system, it’s a bit like an institution but not a real institution.

Yes, it’s true. And there is never the intention to become an institution in that sense. Yeah, we do a lot of things, and it’s becoming more like an institution, whether we like it or not. You know it's just naturally having a team now of 10 people, even more, 14 people. And having residencies for up to 20 people. You know it’s really… so there are always around 14 people. You can organize it organically to a certain extent, but you have to start thinking about structures. Otherwise, you know… Things also repeat for us.

Artists come, they need to know what is the infrastructure, what can they do. Where do we go when we have this and that… You know, in the beginning of the time, it’s also interesting to explain to people, but after a while… ‘cause it repeats. And you also want to focus more on content. You know you want to focus more on curating stuff and developing ideas with the artists. So all these kind of infrastructural things you start to institutionalize it more. It’s a natural development.

Nevertheless, our whole structure, we are three directors, I mean, this is a joke. We are three people, we funded this place, and we are trying to keep our hierarchies within the team really flat. No one wants to be the accounting idiot, and everyone would like to be only working artistically. So we have to share these kind of things.

But in 3 years, you’ve grown from only 3 of you guys to now a team of 10, plus artists. How did this happen? I mean, especially the financial part of it, how did you grow this? Where did the finance come from?

Sure, I can explain. So basically, we didn’t have any cost in developing this place, because the development was funded. All the inside of the building is new, basically. So, this all got funded by different foundations. It was like we needed 1.6 million euros to refurnish the whole building. And we got the funding. So we don’t have a bank loan to pay back, that put us in a good situation.

And then, basically, the residency works in two different ways. I mean, the residency creates the income, in the sense that we have contracts with the institutions that rent spaces and they then distribute to artists. So, you know, we have a partner in Korea who rents the place, it’s an institution. And they send us a shortlist of artists that they think would fit in our space. And we make the final choice from the shortlist of whom will come.

So this is one part, the other part is the open call that we have. Where we say, you apply, and if we like your work, we will send you all the papers necessary for you to find funding in your national or local structures that you come from. So a Canadian artist will get an invitation saying, “We invite you for…”and they will tell us, “Yeah, write research and exhibition.” So we write that. And then, they can hand it to their local funding structures. And they have 3 years time after we’ve invited them to do this. Then, their stay is also funded, but by local structures in Canada. So these are the kind of two main tools.

And then also we have scholars that come, and they are doing a semester break, and they have a substantial income, so they just pay for the rent. And this income basically helps us to maintain the building and to help us run everything we run here, more or less. But it’s not really enough, because the maintenance of the building is pretty costly. So we have to also create income through renting the place to other institutions that want to do exhibitions. But that’s a tricky part, because you really have to see if it fits into your programing, is it too far out. You know, so we have to always look very closely. It’s a curatorial question.

But right now it has been healthily balanced?

Yeah, more or less. I mean, you have your ups and downs, you know. I’m really happy with how the program has been developed. With the residencies, sometimes it’s a bit tricky, because there are some difficulties. We work a lot towards residencies, like we have weekly joint dinners with presentations, we have curatorial visits, we offer them once a month to do an exhibition, and to have this open house. So they can decide whether they just want to do it in their studio, or if they really want to exhibit it.

But the more we offer, the more they need our personal attention, which is totally normal, of course. They don’t know the infrastructure and so on. And this costs more money, because we pay people to do this. So the more you offer, the better you want to become, the more costly it becomes. And of course, also the more you have difficulties. You know, misunderstandings, etc. So it gets more complex. But this is where it starts getting interesting also.

As the director of this space, how is your day or week divided?

Yeah, that’s also the tricky part. Since we still actually do quite a lot of art, and we still travel quite a lot. We got a project in Russia where we’ve been away for 4 weeks, so this is actually quite difficult. If we are not here, then things can really collapse, so we need to organize this really well. In a weekly routine, I’d say I’m working here four days a week. And I have one day and the weekend for doing my stuff, like artistic work, or just organizing my life. If you are working independently instead of employed by somebody, you have to spend a lot of time organizing your life without doing any art. So this is maybe another two days of the week, and maybe one day I’m not doing anything expect for hanging out at lakes.

But you also have 7 more employees, do you have to manage them? Do you have to tell them what to do? The programming part, and all the rest of running this space?

Yeah, yes we do. I mean we have kind of reoccurring formats, so there are certain routines. So you don’t have to tell people anymore, and they will manage. So our event coordinator, our residency coordinator, they know how to make contracts, how to communicate with the public and so on. But all the extra things, and there are quite a lot, we always have to sit together.

We have a weekly team meeting on Mondays, which is like 2-4 hours, quite long, but it’s very important to inform each other about what’s going on and where. And then, yeah, so we do have to sort of, to a certain extent, “direct”, but only to a certain extent. There is quite a lot of freedom for our employees to make decisions. On the financial side, I think we still need to keep the overview of course. And also, there is a certain stability of income, and how much people will get and so on.

Usually for artists, they just operate on their own, just one person. And then, I mean I guess you are used to working collectively with the group. And now it’s really a big thing, a lot of things are happening, a lot of responsibility. It’s also a very long-term commitment saying you are going to do this, make it happen…

Yeah yeah, that’s also true. It’s not fully resolved how much we like this. You know, I mean, we have a lot of fun here. And it’s a great freedom we have, we can make so many decisions, it’s amazing. But the administrative part is actually quite big. So I sometimes really wonder, hmm, I mean, do we still have enough time for doing artistic work? You know, this is of course a question. And so far, we’ve been lucky I would say. It’s always been possible for us to do projects every year, a couple of projects. But in the long run, it’s really stressful. We work very very hard to make these kind of artistic and administrative ends meet. You know, I wouldn’t say, yeah, this is now and forever.

And I wouldn’t mind maybe in a couple of years, maybe this has become so stable that we can slowly and smoothly kind of move out. Maybe I will be only serving on the advisory board, maybe just come here once a month. But now it’s not the time, we still have to do so much funding work, basic work. I think it’ll take another 5-10 years until this is really smooth.

But concerning your first question, we are totally used to working collectively. I mean I still work in two other collectives that I’m doing artistic work with. I’m also doing individual work, but I prefer working in a collective. It’s more fun. I like this social interaction all this is good, I like it. And you know, it helps you. You don’t always have amazing ideas. There are times when you don’t have great ideas, then you are stuck. And then there are people that inspire you in the collective. So this is really helpful. You don’t get into this artistic crisis.

As an individual you can go into a really deep crisis. I mean, there were phases when I was only working individually, and I was really like, uhh, what am I doing, this is bad, my work is not good. And in a collective, it’s more fun and you can relate to each other. But I think it’s also healthier to think about how we as a collective are slowly moving out of this thing and letting a younger generation take it over, because for us as a collective we also have to change. And new challenges are really important.  I think this is also what keeps us together. You know you have a new challenge. Ok, let’s go for it. You know. It’s bonding.

Is having and running this place also a statement for your artist collective?

A: Yeah, it is. We consider it as part of our artistic work. You know this kind of thing and how we develop it, the story was very tricky. I don’t think any normal person would have gone through this process to build this thing, you know. No one, like an investor, would ever have done this. An architect would not have done this. No business-oriented person would have done this. So I think because it just didn’t make sense, and it was too risky also. We took really a lot of risk when we started working on this thing.

This place was originally a train station?

Yes, it was a train station.

Does it belong to the government?

No longer, it belongs to us. I mean, we as the institution, the KUNSTrePUBLIK own the house. That’s why it was so complicated. This is why we also put so much effort into this building. It’s really a quite interesting construction. The land where the house stands belongs to the city government.

So the city government owns the land, we own the house. And this is part of the public park, so anyone could come in.  So we have a lease for the land that this building stands on. And if the lease runs out, which is in 37 years, then the city government could say, we want our land back. This could happen in 37 years. If they want us to move somewhere else at that time, then they would have to pay the association KUNSTrePUBLIK money that the building has in value. So this is kind of a very lucky situation.

But on the other side, also I find it interesting because the local government does have some influence. In 37 years, they can say, ah it’s no longer relevant. I find this is actually a good perspective for us, because in 37 years, both of us can have a decision again. I think this is good. Usually, land is sold to a private company or private owner, and the city can never influence it anymore, what’s happening on this land. It’s gone, forever. But in our case, we both can make decisions again.

And this kind of contract was very complicated. To develop this contract, and to find a base from the legal point of view was really complicated.

But 37 years is a really long time, what made you decide to commit yourself to this?

I mean we’ve always been doing projects where we didn’t know what’s going to happen in 2 years, or 1 year. But the reality of Berlin is that, if you don’t find something more sustainable, you are gonna be kicked out, sooner or later, by the rent. As an artist, except if you become a really famous gallery artist, which is very unlikely. The likeliness of it is very very low. So this is a reality that most of the students don't actually see. The chance of working in your job in Germany as an artist is like 2%. So you start going to art school, and 2% work out, and they will be working in the art field. Making a living by selling art or becoming maybe a curator is only 2%. All the other 98% they do something entirely different.

Or for a while, they get some funding, but at the same time they need another job.

Exactly. And then the other job will take over. (Laugh) This is how it is. The statistic is like they look at art students ten years after they finish their studies. Yeah, so this is the reality, the painful reality. So we also realize, hey, we’ve got to find a more sustainable model. Doing projects here, doing projects there, sooner or later we’ll have to stop and do some odd jobs, or become teachers.

You might still be working somehow with what you’ve learned. But you will just do a different job. So we realize of course the special situation of Berlin is very complicated and getting more difficult. That’s why we pushed for finding a place that’s going to be there for longer. And it’s good to have the opportunity to have this kind of long-term commitment.

I mean, we could also at any point just walk out of here. If we get totally tired, we could just walk out. It wouldn’t be a big problem. Then we’ll have to find the transition. But I’m sure people would be happy to take it over. This is not a burden. It’s a responsibility and we really take it, but it’s not like a burden.

Do you think you are running this place because you feel responsible for the society, somehow? Or it’s mostly for yourself that you want to do it?

I think this is why we do work in the public space. This is why we are interested in creating interaction between the local community and artists. Because I think we feel it’s good to take some responsibility for society, not just for yourself. I mean, it’s quite boring just to take responsibility for yourself. And this is also question of age. I fully understand that the longer you live in a society, and maybe you start appreciate certain aspects of your society that you live in, the more you want to take responsibility.

You think like, hey, I’m still here. Nothing really bad has happened to me, wow. And this is due to the fact that people took responsibility, you know. You start to understand your life is what it is because other people took responsibility and developed a place you liked and you went to, and so on. So you feel like, ok, is it a good feeling to also give something back? To take responsibility, it’s a good feeling.

What about the residencies here in Berlin? I know there are a lot of residencies here. Can you give me an overview of the landscape, and what kind of differences there are between these residencies?

Basically, the residencies in Berlin… there is one residency which is funded by the federal government. It’s called Bethanien. That’s the only one that’s federally funded. All the other ones are running on basically renting the space out to artists. Of course there is like DAAD, you know, stuff like that, but it’s not a residency in that sense.

And maybe some art schools they also have studios. And also, other countries rent studios. Like, Switzerland has a lot of studios spread out all over Berlin, and they send Swiss artist to their studios. But it’s not a residency in that sense. It’s more like a scholarship, but it’s a residency in the sense that you live and work somewhere. DAAD is funded by the federal government of Deutschland, and they have a different model. Artists from all over the world can come here and get funded by this scholarship, and they get a studio.

Then other spaces, there are many smaller spaces, they rent their space out to institutions and to artists directly.

Speaking of the funding system for the residencies, how much funding support is out there for artists here? What are the chances that artists can actually get some funding?

From their local governments. You know, it really depends on where you come from. So if you come from Canada there is a good chance, if you come from Australia there is a good chance, because they have a lot of cultural and travel funding. There are other countries where it’s much more difficult. We have an artist here right now from Nigeria, and the Goethe-Institute is funding him to come here. So it totally depends, there is no general answer to this.

How good is the chance? It really depends on where you stand as an artist in your career and how solid your work is. It depends on your local funding structures. And also… I mean it's kind of difficult for younger artists, because they don’t have this kind of solid work. This is always the problem for younger artists. So we’ve also won funds that allow us to give somebody a green card, say you can come and we pay for it. There’s one residency that we do this with.

So you were saying for younger artists it’s more difficult, but also doing residencies is kind of necessary for artists now to take off in their career.

It’s part of your career, part of your CV, and if it’s not in your CV, then it will be a bit difficult for you. Yeah, yeah, it’s tricky. You have to get into this system. You know, this kind of first step into the system where you go on one, or maybe two residencies, then from there your network develops, your CV grows, you develop your work, it’s paid. If you get into this thing, then it gets easier and easier. Until you are 40, and nobody will take you anymore. (Laugh)

I heard that for a lot of them, the cap is 35.

Yeah yeah, it’s true. Definitely, we are still travelling a lot not because we go on residencies, but because we get invited a lot. I mean, we haven’t applied for any travel stuff for 10 years now. Yeah, because we couldn’t, 35. (laugh)

For your artist collective part, do you also have to promote it somehow, or let other people know what you are doing?

Sure. In the year 2015, you have to communicate, day and night. Yeah sure, we do communicate what we do, because our work also relies a lot on communication. Yeah, Twitter, we do have. ZK/U has Twitter. Of course we communicate in all these different channels of what we do.

And people just see that, and they want to invite you?

Yeah, and mostly people invite us because they know us from personal connections. And this is also this kind of a tricky part for youngsters to get into this market. Somebody seeing your work is not enough. It happens also, but not very often.

Usually what happens is like, one of us goes to panel talks, and presents a work, and then somebody says “wow”. The work starts talking to you, and then this is the first meeting. And you have some second meeting in a different place, or they happen to be in Berlin, and then things develop.

Of course, over time, your address book gets bigger. You know more people. It’s how it is. So, in the beginning, it’s really difficult. And this is also why, and I think this is really right, these kind of travel grants are limited to a certain age. Of course not all travel grants are like this. There are travel grants in the world where they take 60-year-old artists, because of the diversity. And we also realize this, having a diverse mix of artists in the residencies is super, it’s the best. You have to have some older, you have to have some younger artists. And then it gets really good. If the age group is too homogeneous, it’s not good. It’s really like, the dynamic gets really negative. You start having fights. Yeah, it’s really interesting. This is a social experiment.

So throughout your artistic career, what kind of jobs have you done along the way to make money?

Starting with doing regular jobs in bars, of course. And working for radio stations, TV stations, odd jobs, that was while I was studying, and through the transition phase, from finishing my study to working independently, I was in a very lucky position.

While I was studying, I was playing music and composing. I started doing this when I was 16. And then, I was able to actually really make some money with this. I got royalties from compositions that I made. So this helped me for like 3 years to get through this phrase, where I didn't really have to work, where I could do my artistic work. Lucky. I was still doing music videos. This was sort of after I came out of art school. So I made some money there. And media animation jobs ‘cause I studied experimental film, so I was an After Effects operator. Editor, editor for films. Directing for music videos. So this was like maybe 5 years from when I was 29 until I was 34.

And since then, I’ve never done any jobs except for teaching… and I’m still doing this today. Teaching in the art context. Teaching at art schools. I was teaching at UDK, University of Art in Berlin. And 2 years ago I had a professorship for 1 year as a guest professor at Kassel University, where the Documenta is.

You were a musician before?

Yeah, yeah, I was. It was part time, part time artistic activity.  

How old were you then?

I started being a musician when I was 16, and I had my first record contract when I was 19. And I played music on a semi-professional level while I was in art school. During my art school time I was also playing in different bands, composing music for other people. So, it was half of my time with this, and half of my time with art studies.

And after I graduated I still continued doing some of that, and actually some money came in. Then I came to the point where I had to decide where I put my time. Do I put my time into music, or art? And my girlfriend got pregnant. I had to make life decisions. I really said, stop that music thing. It’s youth culture, it’s gonna be sad when you are 40, and you didn’t really fully succeed. And in the art world, you can grow old in decency. It was really like a decision time. I started to do art. I’m happy with this decision.

And now you get a salary here to pay yourself?

Yeah, we get some kind of basic salary. And the rest of the money comes from doing art projects from the outside, and comes from doing workshops also.

Your life is well lived!

Yeah, it never got boring, this much I can say. But it was also very intense. And it’s going to continue like this. I’m not tired. Yeah, I feel up for it.

Interviewed in Moabit, Berlin. August 27th , 2015